Friday, 22 January 2010

Identity Politics

Hard upon John Denham's speech last week (which seemed to imply that the battle against racism had been won and we now needed to turn to issues about class) come the Office for National Statistics figures which show that almost half of young black people are unemployed – despite overall unemployment falling slightly in the three months to November 2009.

Oh, so I guess we need to look harder at these groups to find out why they…

Oh, what am I saying. Of course not. What’s needed here is quotas, targets, and special treatment…

But even in the dying days of this administration there are things that the government could do, if it had the will.

Nice of you to admit this administration is dying, Diane. Many of us are looking forward to the opportunity to administer the coup-de-grace!

Successive schemes to promote youth employment and "apprentice" style training have shown that the private sector employers take fewer ethnic minority young people than white young people. The government should, long ago, have put pressure on private sector employers (in those geographic areas where it is relevant) to take a proportionate number of qualified ethnic minority trainees, interns etc. Setting targets would be the easiest way to do it.

They want guaranteed jobs? In the middle of a recession? Are you on the BNP’s payroll, Diane. Because it’s hard to see why not, given you are doing their jobs for them.

And I suppose they want guaranteed money as we…

Small business provides many jobs in the inner city. But the figures produced by the 57 varieties of business support schemes funded by the government show that ethnic minority business does not get its proportionate share of funding. (Although local authorities and public sector organisations are all too happy to "trouser" extra money on the basis of the number of ethnic minorities in their area.)

*sigh*

Last but not least, over half of Britain's ethnic minorities live in the Greater London area. By far the biggest regeneration and job creation activity in London is the Olympic park. Yet the number of local people employed on the Olympic park is disproportionately small.

‘British jobs for British workers’, eh..?

Heard that one before…

And within that, the number of ethnic minorities is even tinier relatively. Yet all the Olympic boroughs have large minority populations. If the government had the courage to insist on higher levels of local labour being employed on the Olympic park, that in itself would raise ethnic minority employment levels in London.

But hang on, you just claimed that the eeeeviill racist employers wouldn’t employ minorities, so won’t they just take more white local staff?

You can’t keep your story straight, can you? Just who do you represent, Diane, your constituents? Or some small sub-set of your constituents?

When I first came here, I had a year to wait before I could get my police training place, so I worked in a pizza factory.

A33% were Turkish, who you never saw, because they all refused to work with pork, in a factory that specialised in cheese and ham pizzas (But that is another story), 33% mixed white, Europeans, and 33% black.

Quite often the piszza line would throw a wobly, and its pizzas all over the floor. It was our job to pick them up and put them back on the line. (Yes you read that correctly. NEVER eat factory made pizzas). So. there were 12 people on the line to do this. 4 white, and 8 black.

NEVER failed! We 4 were running our bloody socks off rescuing these pizzas, whilst the other lazy bastards were just standing in a group in the corner watching and chatting.

THAT is why bosse will not employ pickeninnys, because without the whip on the back, they could, WILL not, work to save their bloody LIVES. (As the U.S is just begining to find out with their "President").

Why, simple.. much of the work is phone based and people want to speak to a voice they can understand and that the person can relate to the operator.

They also need ALL the employees to get on well so someone wearing a burkha and taking the moral high ground causes friction, so would disappearing 5 times a day or refusing to do certain jobs because of their "beliefs".

They are also a tad risky in that you never know when someone is going to shout racism and take you to a tribunal.

Health and Safety requires a total understanding of English. Imagine how many foreigners working on the Olympic site are not conversant with H&S.. unless of course its been taught in several different languages!

Finally, believe it or not.. some people actually do believe in "British Jobs for British Workers".

"33% were Turkish, who you never saw, because they all refused to work with pork, in a factory that specialised in cheese and ham pizzas..."

/facepalm

What were they doing hiring people who couldn't/woulndn't work..?

Agency workers.And once they are sent, the pizza firm can not send them away, because then they scream "racism".

The same reason the pickeninnys got away with standing in the corner talking all day.

Health and Safety requires a total understanding of English. Imagine how many foreigners working on the Olympic site are not conversant with H&S.. unless of course its been taught in several different languages!

Bread factory (I was agency. You get one day here, two days there.), the fire and first aid instructions were, in order;

TurkishRussianPolishand right at the bottom, in small print, photocopy of some secretarys bad translation pasted to the wall beneath the main sign;German.

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